


Hear them sing

by BrilliantlyHorrid



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Daisy wants to be a helper, F/M, Fluff, Make Daisy Happy, Shippy, Shopping, but mostly implied, heavily, short and sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-18
Updated: 2016-04-18
Packaged: 2018-06-03 01:33:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6591268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrilliantlyHorrid/pseuds/BrilliantlyHorrid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coulson helps Daisy buy a gift for Robin Hinton.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hear them sing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Persiflage](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Persiflage/gifts).



> Plot courtesy of Persiflage meeting my demands of "prompt me something fluffy!"
> 
> I'm guessing on Robin's age here, but Coulson says Charles left when she was 18 months old and that was "last summer" so I'm putting her around 3-4 here.

“You’re going where?” Phil asked, catching up to Daisy as she headed to the garage. They passed a half dozen members of the work crew removing rubble from the hallway, and while there was still a way to go, progress was good.

“Shopping,” Daisy repeated, noting his confused face. She paused and looked around. Self-consciously? “Not for me, I uh, wanted to buy something for Robin. Hinton.” Phil nodded, understanding flooding his face before he frowned.

“Is it her birthday?” He asked, despite knowing full well that wasn’t until January. Daisy shook her head, looking a little embarrassed.

“No, I just thought with--everything,” she gestured at the state of the Playground around them, “I could use something a little... _light._ Then I thought ‘who else could use something nice for a change?’ And…” She shrugged.

Phil adjusted his stance, trying not to make it too obvious that she had succeeded in nearly flooring him with her kindness once again. “That’s a nice thing to do,” he said instead, and Daisy gave him that awkward smile she always did when someone recognized something good she was doing. Another time, maybe, she would have brushed it off with a joke, but that didn’t seem to be part of the plan today. He didn’t mind. Phil loved Daisy’s humor, but too much of the time it was at her own expense.

“Where are you going?” He asked and Daisy mentioned that there was one of those big cheap department stores a little less than an hour away. Coulson hesitated, not wanting to force his presence on her. But he _had_ been in the Playground managing repairs for what felt like weeks… “Maybe I could come?” He asked, questioning the words even as they left his mouth. “You know, to help.”

“ _Help_ ,” Daisy repeated, eyebrows raised. Not mocking him, but clearly curious.

“I mean, unless you want to be alone. Or are you not going alone? I probably have some work to do here, actually, so maybe another time,” he rambled on, almost acting as if she had asked him in the first place. _Abort, abort._

“No, no, you can come. You _should_ come,” she corrected, clearly coming to that conclusion as she said it. “Things here…they’ll be fine without you. For a couple hours.”

Phil looked at her skeptically. Was _she_ concerned about _him_ now? He was only asking about it because he was worried about how Daisy was handling everything, but the way she was looking at him now…

Maybe they both needed the break.

“I’ll get my keys.”

***

“How about this?” Coulson asked, holding up an adorable pajama set covered in little frogs. A _tiny_ adorable pajama set.

“Super cute, way too small,” Daisy said as she sifted through the hangers. “Okay, can we talk about how ridiculous gendered baby clothes are for a second?” She grabbed a newborn onesie out of the “boy’s” section. “Like, why does the one with a tie on it have to be for a boy?”

“I guess it doesn’t,” Coulson said, shrugging. He got that funny little look of concentration before pulling something off the rack. “How about this?” While he held up a leggings/shirt set for her approval, Daisy took a look at the rest of his basket.

“Coulson I left you for like five minutes,” she said incredulously. There was a veritable stockpile of clothing in there, ranging from pjs to a couple of really nice formal outfits Robin probably wouldn’t need as a three-year-old.

“Is it too much?” Phil asked self-consciously, looking down at what he had grabbed. “They’re probably not the right sizes either,” he mused, and Daisy had to laugh.

“It’s okay, it’s not too much, just...a lot. Which is good!” Robin deserved nice things. They both knew there was no way to replace what she had lost (really, _really_ knew,) but it was less about the gifts than the sentiment that there was someone looking out for her, that they remembered her and her father.

“Here, let’s put the smaller stuff back and grab a couple more things,” Daisy said encouragingly, grabbing his basket and handing Phil hers. “I picked up some books too,” she told Phil, who began to look through them.

“I haven’t heard of this one,” Phil said, picking the top book off the small stack.

“That one was my _favorite,_ ” Daisy said, putting a 3-6 month tutu (really Phil?) back on the rack and grabbing one in a toddler size. “It’s about this princess who is in love with a prince but the prince gets kidnapped by a dragon, so she goes to save him,” she answered, and Phil made a funny face as he flipped through the pages. “But the dragon burns her clothes so she wears a paper bag. Hence, you know, the title.”

“And they live happily ever after?” Coulson asked, with only a slightly noticeable hint of sarcasm.

“Well, she does,” Daisy answered, and Coulson followed her through the racks as she replaced the too-small clothes with their older equivalent. “So, she reaches the dragon, and outsmarts him by using his ego against him. She’s all like ‘wow, I bet you can’t fly this far,’ or ‘can you really breathe that much fire?’ And he tires himself out trying to show off.”

“Men,” Phil said, and Daisy laughed.

“Seriously. So then she finally rescues the prince and he’s all ‘ew you look gross, where are your nice clothes, why do you look like that, princesses should be pretty,’ and stuff like that.” She had first read the book at St. Agnes, before the nuns apparently realized the empowering feminist message and had it scrapped, but in Austin she briefly dated a librarian who tracked down a copy for her. It was just as good at 17 as it was at 7.

“I imagine she doesn’t take that well,” Coulson replied, smiling as he put the book back in the basket.

“No, she basically tells him to screw off. Or, well, the child-friendly version of that. Then she walks into the sunset.” _The end._

“I’m sure Robin will love it,” he said, eyeing his basket as Daisy added a pair of boots. “Let’s hope we don’t send her conflicting messages with all the clothes,” Coulson joked, and Daisy smiled.

“I think we’ll be okay for now,” she told him, “but we should probably wrap it up.”

“I think you’re right,” Coulson agreed. “Ready to check out?”

Daisy sighed. She was trying not to make it a ‘thing,’ and they had kept things light so far, but…

“Thank you for doing this,” she said quietly, watching as Coulson got that little resigned face. “No really, I know you’re about as good at accepting thanks for things as I am, but seriously Coulson. I’m happy you came with me.”

“Of course,” he answered, shoving his free hand in his pocket, the other fidgeting with the handle of the basket. “To be honest I probably needed this as much as you did. But you probably knew that.”

Daisy shrugged, knowing she’d been caught. The past couple weeks had been immeasurably hard, for both of them. Plus, she would admit to being selfish and enjoying a day off base with him, doing something nice for someone else. In a totally weird way, it was exactly what she wanted SHIELD to be.

(Maybe not constant present-buying, but the same general idea. Thoughtful, individual attention.)

"I know you like helping people too, and your position doesn't always make it easy to do that," she admitted, and Coulson pursed his lips thoughtfully. She clearly wasn't wrong. "But you do. Help people. Some of us more than others, maybe," she said jokingly, but paused when she caught his expression. "What?"

"Nothing," Phil said, trying to brush it off. "I just maybe shouldn't be as...blatant. Favoring some agents over others. It might give people the wrong idea."

Daisy frowned. "Such as?" They resumed their walk toward the register, Coulson deliberately looking ahead. _Okay...?_

"Such as, you know, someone being treated better for inappropriate reasons."

"Inappropriate," Daisy repeated.  

Phil sighed. "Not--"

"Coulson, the only way  _this--_ " she gestured between the two of them, "could even be considered inappropriate is if you--"

 _Hold on._  

"I'm not trying to be," Phil said quietly. "I try not to treat you any differently, only the way you deserve, but..." He cleared his throat, and Daisy tried not to stare at him too blatantly, worried it could scare him off. "But you deserve to be treated well, and sometimes it feels like you're not getting that from...others." 

Daisy nodded, a bit stunned by that admission. The idea that Coulson had noticed things like that, when she was always the first to deny them...well, it gave her earlier reservations some legitimacy, didn't it? 

They were about to resume their walk when Daisy paused again, placing a hand lightly on his arm. "Just for the record, I don't think it's...inappropriate." She frowned, hating that she'd already used that word so much. "I mean, I haven't exactly been professional when it comes to you, so maybe I'm not the best judge of that. But you know, just because I noticed you sometimes treat me differently from Simmons or Mack doesn't make it a bad thing. If you feel differently about me than you do about Simmons or Mack, that is."  _What are you doing?_

"I do," Phil answered quickly, "just--if that comes through I want it to be under the right circumstances. Nothing jeopardizing a mission or your position in SHIELD, but--"

"But if we want to do nice things for each other, outside of missions..." Daisy finished, finally venturing a look at his face. He looked a bit flustered, but decided, meeting her eyes. 

"That should be fine," he agreed, and Daisy nodded, smiling before something down at the end of the aisle caught her eye. 

Coulson noticed her freeze, following her gaze to the item against the wall.

“Do you want to get that for her too?” He asked, but Daisy shook her head.

“No, it’s probably too big, isn’t it?” She tilted her head. “It’s pretty, but...I’ll look online for a smaller version.”

Phil nodded, and they gave the painting one last look before heading to the register.

 

The next week, a very tired Daisy returned home to find a large framed painting of a female robin, standing on the edge of her nest, hung up across from her bed. She had been right; it was much too big for a child’s room, but perfect to make her empty bunk finally feel like home again.


End file.
